Well it’s been a busy few months here in Japan. While my wife and I live in Tokyo, I’ve also been spending some time down in Okayama working with a traditional carpentry company called 杣耕社 (Somacousha). This past month with Somacousha was jam packed with amazing woodworking and building projects, one of which was the construction of a watchtower near lake Biwa.
The guys at Somacousha, Kohei Yamamoto and Jon Stollenmeyer, do some amazing traditional carpentry work, and one of their specialties is hewing with axe and adze. They were called in to participate in the watchtower construction largely to do some hewing on the posts and beams of the structure, and I was fortunate to be able to join them.
We arrived early in the morning to find these four 8 meter logs waiting for us. Our task was to give theses logs a hewn texture using chouna (Japanese adzes) :
With four of us working on one log each, it took most of the day to complete the hewing on the posts. Needless to say my arms were feeling pretty rubbery, but the results were well worth the effort:
After the logs we turned to the watchtower beams and gave those some texture as well:
Beautiful adze work by Jon Stollenmeyer:
On day 3 with the hewing and joinery complete we started raising the watchtower. In total we had 10 carpenters and a crane to get the job done. There were definitely a few hiccups and some occasional head scratching, but in the end everything came together, and it was an amazing process to behold:
Below is the watchtower at the end of day 4. At this point we had completed most of the major carpentry work, so our part of the job was complete. The master carpenter continued from here on his own with a couple of helpers to finish off the remaining details before the walls of the watchtower get plastered.
Finally, here are a few more detail shots of the structure and our hewing work. Working on this project over 4 days was intense, and it was an amazing experience to see the watchtower unfold. I’m incredibly grateful to the guys at Somacousha for letting me join them on journeys such as this, and will post more about a few other projects soon. So stay tuned, and thanks for visiting!
Wow. That’s amazing. Glad you shared that with us.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed reading.
Beautiful work Jon! Quite a challenge and looks like it will be there on the shore of Lake Biwa for years to come.
It seems a shame to cover such beautiful work.
Are you referring to the plaster work? When the plaster is complete much of the timber structure will still be visible, including all the hewn beams and posts. The grid-like inner structure is built to give a base and support the plaster. The finished watchtower will look quite different but should be a beautiful building.